"I must. I am deeply grateful to you for your hospitality, and more for your frankness."
"My frankness?"
"Good-by."
"Wait. You will be dizzy on the ladders."
"Nonsense! I never was dizzy in my life."
"Not a moment ago?"
"Oh, yes! But I am clear-headed now. Don't come. I really mean it. I don't want you."
She slipped down the ladder, leaving him alone. He stood a moment looking at the branches which hid her from his sight, and then flung himself down upon a rustic seat in deep thought.
Meanwhile Patty went back towards the brook and her home. She stopped at the bridge as before, but now the vague unrest in her heart was changed to positive pain. It had not been giddiness which had made her white, but a sudden conviction, that, after all, her lover had no passion worth the name. She was very unhappy,—so unhappy, indeed, as to forget to be angry with herself for being so. She saw Hazard Breck coming down the brookside, and looked about for a means of escape from meeting him. At that moment he looked up, and saw her. He involuntarily made a motion, as if half minded to turn back; and instantly a desire arose in Patty to encounter him. Life, like dreams, goes often by contraries; and desires are oftener caught upon the rebound than directly.
"Good-afternoon," Patty called, with a fine assumption of gayety.